"Oh, the sentence! The shuddering, sinuous, piquant, incandescent, delicate, delirious, sulking, strident possibilities of it all!" -Constance Hale (from Sin and Syntax: how to craft wickedly good prose)

Writing Workshop Mondays

This year, Mondays will be devoted to a writing workshop. This approach to explicit writing instruction will help mold your specific style and your individual needs to create strong, effective writing. We will be using a text by Constance Hale, entitled Sin and Syntax: how to craft wickedly effective prose, as our core resource. Within this writing workshop, we will focus on various types of essay writing: the college essay, creative writing, non-fiction and imaginative writing, and preparing for the SAT.  It is my goal to prepare you for the rigorous requirements that you will face in the Composition courses that you will encounter during your freshman year in college.

Agenda

Mon 9-9-2013
     -Week 1: Introduction to Words and the Writing Workshop
     -HW: 
               1. Read "Introduction" and "Nouns."
               2. Using a reputable thesaurus, find more precise words to replace the three words you used to describe yourself in Week 1.
                3. Find three advertisements that capitalize on their word choice ( ex. "Got milk?").

Monday 9-16-2013
     -Week 2: Noodling Around with Nouns
     -HW: 
                1. Reread "Nouns" and read "Pronouns" to prepare for next week's workshop.
                2. Read the passage from "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe'" by Carson McCullers (in class handout); underline ALL nouns and note idea/feeling/abstraction nouns McCullers uses to set up certain themes (dreams, gaiety, ruin).
                3. Writing Exercise: model a description of an evocative place on McCuller's description of the small town in Georgia, using mostly concrete, vivid nouns but also carefully chosen nouns that express an idea or theme.
                4. 8 Item Handout on identifying some of the Seven Deadlies in writing.

Monday 9-23-2013
     -review 8 Item Handout (Identifying Seven Deadlies)
     -Week 3: Pronouns and Point of View
     -HW: Sometime this week go to a favorite restaurant or other public place where people congregate for a common purpose (movie thater, mall, etc.) and write three perspectives of the same event from a specific type opf character.

Monday 9-30-2013
    -Writing Workshop Week 4: Verbs, the Heartbeat of the Sentence
    -100 Ways to Say "Walk"
    -HW:Verb Review/Passive and Active Voice Worksheet

Monday

Resources